The Doctor Who Project is merely seeing its first appearance of the Ice Warriors since Season 35’s Ogopogo (2008). The upcoming Season 41 stories The Throne of Peladon and The Secret of Peladon, however, writer James P. Quick takes a different approach.

“The lovely thing about the original Peladon story – perhaps not so much the second, but hey ho – is that it humanizes the Ice Warriors,” Quick said. “They’re not just lumbering, hissing juggernauts anymore. They are a genuine culture comprised of people.”

Ice Warriors first showed up in the appropriately-titled The Ice Warriors during Season 5 (1967). On that occasion, the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines), and Victoria Waterfield (Deborah Watling) defeated a group led by Varga (Bernard Bresslaw) at a glacial base. They later reappeared in Season 6’s The Seeds of Death (1969) and all later Peladon stories.

In this season's two Peladon stories, the lead Ice Warrior in the two-parter is a woman, named Efaxyr. However, you’d be hard-pressed to tell her gender if you looked at her.

“The Ice Warriors are reptiles. You show them being female in other ways,” Quick said, “not just slapping a pair of very human breasts on one and calling it a day. That’s lazy, quite frankly.”

The other main Ice Warrior in the tale is Efaxyr’s adjutant, H’skrr. The two characters are utilized to make a point about honor and loyalty, plus examining the state of Ice Warrior culture.

You can see the Ice Warriors in The Throne of Peladon and The Secret of Peladon, coming out September 23 and 30.